You Be The VC: American Idol meets Venture Capital

You Be The VC is a new project that's looking to tap into the wealth of ideas out there on the Web to find the next best thing, or at least get people with good ideas together to talk to one another, collaborate, and create it. Think American Idol, but with geeks.

Web companies are a dime a dozen, and every day, it seems, another startup with a new idea goes through a round of venture capital fund-raising. Everyone wants to make sure they're on board when the next big thing gets popular. But what do you do if you have an idea and some Web skills, but don't have the money or the people to make your dream a reality? You Be The VC, a new project, wants to help you. If you have an idea that you just know could be the next Digg or Facebook, you can join the project, submit your idea, and have it judged by a panel of professionals from Web companies such as Google, GrandCentral, and Pownce. If they like your idea and think it's worth exploring, you could win your own company.

If you pay attention to the news, you've probably heard that Facebook is estimated to be worth billions of dollars; and companies including Microsoft and Google have been fighting to get a stake in it. Web 2.0 company founders appear on the covers of business magazines these days, and the iPhone was Time Magazine's invention of the year. You don't have to work for Apple or Google or Revision3 to have a great idea; what if you have a great idea for a new Web service or product but don't have the means to make it happen? Perhaps you're just interested in exploring other people's ideas and meeting entrepreneurs whose ideas will shape the future of the Web. You Be The VC can help.

Part social network and part community of entrepreneurs, You Be The VC is designed to find the best new ideas using tools that everyone is already familiar with. Sign up for a free account, customize your profile, and immediately start connecting with other entrepreneurs who are interested in starting their own companies, sharing their ideas, and meeting other people. As members submit new business ideas and business plans, the members have first crack at them to decide whether the idea has already been done, is worth considering, or needs tweaking. Members can create groups to discuss their ideas, or start a personal blog to promote their idea and get active feedback from other You Be The VC members.

You Be The VC has garnered a lot of attention and press recently, due in no small part to the virtual laundry list of Web celebs on its judges panel. When your business idea has matured to the point where it can be considered by the judges, people such as Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, will judge it. Joining her are Craig Walker, Senior Product Manager at Google and Co-Founder of GrandCentral, and Leah Culver, Co-Founder and Lead Developer at Pownce. The judge's panel is full of CEOs, product managers, co-founders, editors-in-chief, and other high-profile Web executives.

The judges and members will narrow down the submissions and ideas at You Be The VC to the top 20 finalists, and the finalists will have to pitch their business ideas to the judge's panel in a Web video. The judges will then vote on the ideas to narrow them down further and decide the winners. When the winners are decided, they'll have a chance to work with professional consultants and other entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into a real Web 2.0 startup.

The Web 2.0 concept has turned out some really silly startups, but there's no disputing that the trends toward user-generated content and toward groups of people steering the future of the Web have been good things. Web 2.0 brought us Facebook and MySpace, and blogs like TechCrunch and AppScout. You Be The VC is looking to tap into the wealth of ideas out there on the Web to find the next best thing, or at least get people with good ideas together to talk to one another, collaborate, and create it.